After the demise of the Tour of Beijing last year, it appears that the Abu Dhabi Tour will become the race to step up to WorldTour status and fill that void. But the Tour of Hainan, held on the Chinese Island, and the director Wang Xiangzhou, have revealed they also have plans to become a WorldTour race in the future.

"It's our plan but we don't have a timetable to achieve it yet," Wang explained to Cyclingnews. "In the future, we'd like to upgrade the Tour of Hainan from an HC race to a World Tour event. It's something exciting to aim for. Maybe we'd have to multiply our budget by ten. We'll contact the UCI after this race to know the requirements. We're not in a hurry. We like the idea of growing step by step, from the lowest category to the highest. It's like a building. We need solid foundation. Firstly, we have to improve all aspects of our organisation."

Wang says he has already received some support from team managers, who like the course and the fact that hotels are high quality and close to the start and finish of each of the stages.

"Team managers already said the route is very nice and reasonable. We had a good feedback from media and cyclists about the queen stage from Dongfang to Wuzhishan last year, so we keep the same course this year but it becomes the second last stage instead of stage 7 to maintain the suspense for longer."

The 2015 edition is currently underway. Andrea Palini won the first two stages, Sacha Modolo satges three and four and Benjamin Giraud won today's stage. Modolo leads the GC.